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In the summer of 1951, the residents of a quiet town in southern France were racked with mysterious hallucinations that the authorities blamed on mouldy bread. But now, an American journalist claims that the villagers were the unwitting participants in a secret CIA experiment to discover the mind control potential of psychedelic drugs.

At least five people died, more than 30 were hospitalised and almost 300 taken ill in the unexplained outbreak in Pont-Saint-Esprit, a town in the Gard, south-east France. On 17 August 1951, local doctors' surgeries were filled with people complaining of sudden nausea, diarrhea and insomnia. Hours later, many of them were in the grip of terrifying and often violent hallucinations. One girl believed she was being attacked by tigers. A man tried to drown himself after seeing snakes in his stomach. Another flung himself from a window, believing he was an aeroplane. And an 11-year-old boy tried to strangle his grandmother.

An investigation at the time determined that the town's main bakery was to blame. Scientists suspected that the baker's flour had been accidentally contaminated with a naturally occuring hallucinogenic substance - most likely ergot, a type of psychedelic mould. This explanation was never considered fully satisfactory, however. A US laboratory that asked volunteers to ingest ergot-dosed bread found that none of its subjects presented similar symptoms to the residents of Pont-Saint-Esprit.

Almost 60 years later, new evidence has been uncovered that suggests more sinister forces were at work. According to investigative journalist Hank P Albarelli Jr, the CIA and US Army deliberately contaminated Pont-Saint-Esprit with LSD as part of Cold War-era research into mass mind control. Albarelli claims to have uncovered CIA documents that refer to "the secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit" and explain that the symptoms were called not by ergot but by diethylamide, one of the main substances - the D - in LSD.

Whether you call it a democracy or a republic, open government is impossible when secret state agencies are given extralegal powers they are allowed to exercise in secret, with the justification of a permanent crisis or war.

This form of power will always corrupt. It will always corrode. We do not have democracy as long as such institutions are tolerated.

Typical DU responses...

Octafish (1000+ posts) Sat Mar-13-10 08:59 AM
Response to Reply #131. CIA fed at least one DUer's father LSD, and he died as a direct result. Edited on Sat Mar-13-10 09:06 AM by Octafish
The story makes it seem like he was thrown from an upper story hotel to silence him, after he commented on the NAZI-like nature of the LSD program.